[OffRoad]

There were other choices available.
4)there were (what you refer to as)fractures (I see those as standard life events) in the marriage, which he could not deal with and one,some,all of them triggered mlc.
5) He was fractured and since he couldn't leave himself, left the marriage
6) The marriage was normal, not "wonderful" or "horrible",  and he bought into the media version of "everyone else's life is more perfect than mine"
7) The marriage was not all that great, but from his mlc standpoint, coming back was better than being alone.

There are many choices. How do you determine that your marriage was "wonderful" and he was just in mlc, Acorn? What was your definitive proof that you didn't,  as you say, simply rewrite your marriage so that you could say none of his mlc was triggered by something in the marriage? My marriage was good. It was wonderful for me. But how do I know how it was for XH? As a crappy example, if I love to eat ice cream every night, and did, and xh hated the smell of ice cream, but said nothing to make me happy, I had a wonderful ice cream evening every night, but xh would have had a miserable ice cream evening every night.

Would that have been a wonderful marriage if I thought it was and he didn't but I didn't know it? How can you really know after all the lies you (the generic you) have been told?

[Father5]

Yes but If he/she was so unhappy in what I/we would perceive a decent marriage why not a normal breakup. Why the cruel and unusual punishment. That for me tells me it's a fractured person and not a fractured marriage.

 Instead she chose to have an affair and do and say things that will scare me for life no matter how much I heal. She still hasn't offered even the smallest of apologies. My first marriage was an unhappy one. I know how that feels but I wouldn't have hurt her this way and she also cheated on me. I guess what I am trying to say is that I don't think it mattered what our marriage was like. They would have found a way to blow it up.

[Milly]

I have to say that I'm really enjoying this discussion. I am finding so much that I can relate to, specifically everything LP and Nerissa said.

I'm not putting the blame on the LBS, because we would never blow up our families,and we would try anything before splitting up the family and even then, we would be as correct as possible about it. What I mean is that I now know about stuff like codependency and conflict avoidant and although my H totally was both of these, I was to a certain extent, as well. Put the two of us together and there's going to be a difficult relationship eventually, especially once life becomes more stressful because of kids, investments, jobs, deaths, what ever.

I do think that my H chose me because I was perfect for his FOO issues. I mean he chose me subconsciously, he's not aware of having FOO issues. However, I have them, too, and I believe I enabled much of his bad behaviour for years, and the more I did to cover up his weaknesses, the worse he got, but I kept working harder, controlling more, fixing everything. I now know that this was a weakness in me that needs resolving. I have been working on it, mainly, as others have said, because I refuse to be in a relationship like I had with my H again.

Our marriage was not difficult at first, but that was probably because I smoothed everything over, idolized him, fluttered around him and made him feel like a star. Once I started doing everything for our family, I was exhausted and resentful and stopped providing him with that attention. I didn't do it on purpose, it just developed. I can see now that my H's 'fire' had started inside him before we met. My fluttering kept it under control. Once I stopped idolizing him because honestly, he became such a disappointment, the fire started growing. Then when his parents died within a year of each other, my oldest went off to college abroad, he lost interest in our business and it became a giant financial problem, then his sister died, and OW arrived one month later. I think the fire got out of control because I stopped feeding his ego. I'm not saying that I should have carried on, I'm just saying that I probably managed to keep his crisis at bay for years and hence the 30 years together before BD.

My part in the crisis, is that I was immature and brought my own issues to the relationship, otherwise I would never have married a boy-man or accepted his lazy, financially irresponsible ways. I am working on why I was like this. I don't ever want to be with an immature man again, but I'm still worried that I would not know the difference.

Anyway, as far as my situation is concerned, I do think that the dynamic of our marriage combined with some major external stresses lead to the crisis taking off. If I had done things differently could I have avoided my H going into a major MLC? Possibly, but I was complete unaware of what I was doing so I doubt it. I was attracted to my H for the wrong reasons and that is something that is just mine to deal with. I have been working on this with my IC since BD. It's a long process as it's very hard to change the damaging behaviour that can be instilled on us by our FOO.

[terra]

Milly — I love your way of describing it, “fluttered around him”, because yes, I did that with my h too. I don’t know why he was the only man I could ever be that way with.

Your post made me stop and think. Were we attracted to our spouses for the wrong reasons?

I was immature. I think I still am. But I also think h and I both were mature in the ways that mattered, and he was an able leader in the beginning. He was trustworthy. Or, I thought so at the time, and for a long time. It’s jarring to look back on old journals and see that years ago, h appeared solidly good. The h he is now, is the opposite of all that, almost as though he knew why he was loved and for whatever reason is now intent on burning it to the ground.

I had to think for a minute about “boy-man” and lazy financially irresponsible ways. It’s weird because h was always such a tightwad before MLC. I still feel hurt at how much he has spent, is spending, to keep on with ow2. About immaturity, I struggle with this but I think I always saw it as us building together, learning together, maturing together. So there was a great deal of immaturity that I was more than willing to overlook, because heck: what do *I* know. And I *still* don’t know.

There was just always something irrepressible, in h, in his spirit. That was key for me, it was something I really loved about him. And whatever that was, even if it led to this MLC or maybe the total end of us? It’s something I need, in coupling, in order to feel happy. I’d never really seen it in another person, before him. And haven’t seen it since.

The funny thing is I don’t actually think ow2 is getting that from him. But I’m kind of at a point where I feel like all anyone ever gets from relationship is it’s own projections. I definitely have worn rose-tinted perspective for ages, so there’s that — not unrealistic, but ultimately often too forgiving or too “accepting”, which I had always been taught was a good trait. “Non-judgmental”. “Unconditional”. No template for how to do or be any of that correctly. So, I loved my best ways and I thought we were good. Or thought I was, anyway.

I think ow probably thinks the same thing, about the two of them. And maybe he does too. Weirdly, I’m not taking issue with that: they can do and be whatever, and right now I don’t have any thoughts on it. But it’s weird to realize or just to suppose, how much of any relationship or intimacy is actually a shared perception at all?

[Treasur]

With more thought....

I am not sure it is an either/or kind of question. And I think there is causation and correlation in the mix.

I also think that - using LP's marshmallow fire and stored gasoline example - my half of this life experience created a level of damage disproportionate to any of my own imperfections and that I did not protect myself well from.

I think the question is complicated and trigger-y for some of us bc it is at the heart of our own WTF happened questions. And bc trauma creates a strange place of self-doubt, self-blame and a temptation to rewrite the past in order to make sense of the present and feel some (probably illusory often) control over our future security. Complicated.

I suspect too that our answer to the question might be shaded, or more or less important, depending on our individual situations. If I am trying to reconnect with a spouse or working out if I want to repair a relationship, then part of that is probably working out if there is anything worth investing in. If I am trying to accept an end to a relationship that is now in the past with a lot of missing info, then part of that is probably working out what I can forgive and what I can learn from the experience as part of my own life story. It is a very individual hunt for what feels close enough to the truth as we can get and our individual truths might be quite different. Or that our own truth might change over time.

I was digging off a bit of antsy anxiety yesterday at the allotment. Good for shaking anxiety off and also often a time when my mind trips over it's own conclusions while my hands are busy.

It is still a remarkable thing to me that the marriage and friendship we had disappeared so quickly and so completely. Boom...poof...gone. There really was no noticeable residue of any previous love or like or respect in my h's behaviour at all. That didn't feel normal to me at the time. It doesn't feel normal now years later. I trust that feeling as part of my truth. I tried and tried and I could never draw a sensible straight line between the relationship I had and the way my h ended it. Which always suggested to me that it was more about his reality than mine.

I also believe that i am not a stupid person or normally given to avoiding conflict or tough truths. So I don't believe that there were a host of red flags that just looked like flags bc of my rose-coloured goggles. Or that my h had a personality disorder that I did not notice or that he was wearing a mask for almost 20 years. That just doesn't make sense and I trust my own judgment on that too.

I want to say something about trauma here though bc being able to trust ones own judgment and thinking is a tender spot in recovery. Words like 'cause' or 'catalyst' or 'responsibility' say can inadvertently activate thoughts and some of them are not very healthy, useful or accurate thoughts. (Velika recently posted a link to a thismaericanlife.org podcast called ten sessions about how unpicking our post trauma learned thinking is part of healing.) Some of us here - including me - are still partially 'hearing through a wound' as Barbie calls it. I don't like it much but I acknowledge it. When I look at my life from 1997-now, I look through a wound at least a bit. Questions like these are part of closing the wound but it is messy. And others viewpoints, perhaps from further down the line or more healed, may be what I would like to think or how I would like to feel...but my lens is not always so unclouded truthfully. Taking ownership of parts of a situation where I was abused and afraid is a tricky thing.

So...I trust my judgment that what happened felt very odd and that it did not feel like a natural evolution from the relationship we had and that I do not believe I ignored obvious dysfunction in my m or in my h. I know that my h had a bucket of FOO stuff and some trauma from surviving a fire at 15 which killed his uncle and cousin. I know that my h was diagnosed with severe depression/ocd  and under psychiatric care for at least two years to my knowledge.

It is logical to me to think that if my h was more fractured than I understood, then my m was more fractured than I understood bc he was half of it. He brought that with him into our relationship and life. And I did know some of it, just not all of it; I just was niave about the risk or long-term effects of it. I'm not sure my h knew the extent of his own fractures tbh so how could I have known or foreseen the impact? But it is reasonable to see the m as having an inherent hairline fracture if one person in the m did so yes at one level my m was fractured. Yet he brought that fracture into the m and took it with him when he left, so it doesn't make sense that the m triggered it.

The m co-existed with it though. And over time, in the normal dance of intimate relationships, I think the shape of our m adapted around some of those fractures. Perhaps the m was the safe solution until it wasn't? And my bit of the work round? I think there were parts of my h I did not respect and judged as weaker than me so I (and everyone else who knew him) adapted expectations and did not challenge some of his picture of himself. And, whilst I wasn't a big fixer, that story was also based on me being 'stronger' if he was 'weaker'. That was a co-created fracture point and I own my bit of that. And it made our m vulnerable in circumstances where I might not be strong or where he needed to be stronger....pretty much how life was in the year up to BD. Definitely where I was as a bereaved, traumatised, with a serious illness and then PTSD person for about 18 months post BD. Our m was too vulnerable to withstand my weakness and my h was too fractured to step in and carry it on his own.

So, I don't believe that me or our m caused his crisis. I think he carried the seeds of it and created a latent fracture in our m bc of them. I think I inadvertently did not push us to repair that weak spot bc of adapting around some of the seeds and my own niavety and my own romantic arrogance that I was important to my h and my own mistaken beliefs about my strength.

I don't believe that our m was a catalyst for his crisis.
I do believe that the weakening of his belief in the attachment might have been an additional trigger even if it was mostly created in his head and through his actions.
Like a snowball.
Life was hard, h feels unhappy, depressed h withdraws, grieving w withdraws....and suddenly h now realises that his m is not the safe strong thing he thought it was either.....boom, off to the MLC races. If my h loved and liked me before as much as it seemed he did, doubting our m would have been a big deal for him. I can see in a strange way that losing me and losing our m could have been an additional trigger in a strange self-fulfilling self-destructive prophecy kind of way.
I think my m was fallout and also perhaps a contributing snowball trigger, ironically bc I think perhaps our m was actually very important to my h's sense of self, that I was important to him. (Even if it did not feel that way at all post BD).

Going back to LP's marshmallow fire....maybe thinking about the awful bushfires in Aus right now. I don't believe that the cause of the fire (crisis) was me or our m. Nor do I believe my house was smouldering for years without me noticing. But I think there was a weak spot in my marital house that added to the strength of the fire and the scale of the destruction. That metaphorical gasoline can. I wasn't even solely responsible for the can tbh....but I did know it was there and I didn't deal with it earlier. And I did hang around a bit too long trying to save the house from burning down, worrying about my h while wondering why he had matches in his hand lol, instead of jumping in my ute and getting to a safe place. 

So how do I use any of these lessons given that I am not reconnecting, Standing or even looking for a new relationship? Without throwing the baby out with the bath Water? ( oh dear, that's a mix of metaphors isn't it!) And given that I can't redo the past.

What is/was my equivalent of the gasoline can?
That might require a bit more thought on my own thread.

[Nerissa]

What is/was my equivalent of the gasoline can?
That might require a bit more thought on my own thread.


In your case, where you had acted as a ‘container’ for anxiety etc and then maybe faltered for a while, might the gasoline not have been a much younger, less educated, intelligent and sophisticated woman who made your husband feel successful, capable and strong? ( I mean this seems to be a theme for men anyway) she was around and interested at the right time.  Had she not been, maybe the boat might  have righted itself. 

In my case I don’t think OW was truly the gasoline because I think he was looking for someone anyway.  I think we had run into problems that ultimately have to do with his issues but my own played into them.  I never quite see that dynamic in your story.  I don’t see a lot that was
Avoidable in your story.  I think you had some really bad luck and a spouse with vulnerabilities that you were aware of but whose significance in life’s bigger picture you couldn’t really know.

Reasons aren’t the same as fault.  As Tera has pointed out, memory unreliable and so is perspective. The best we can do is work out  a narrative that is as faithful to our experience and ability to bear the truth about ourselves as we can.  I sometimes think you look to tear yourself up to search for a reason inside yourself that might have been in your H.s head, but to other people, isn’t there at all.

[Airmid]

To me it doesn't make sense to suggest that the dynamics of the marriage had nothing to do with the end result.  Dynamics are made by the two parties.  If one or both are broken, have latent foo issues, are codependent, are conflict avoidant, have a tendency toward depression, have a tendency toward control or fixing issues, have not grown up, have not individuated, those things all impact the dynamics of a relationship, before, during and after the mlc.  Could the Marshmallow fire have grown without my mower gas?  Yes, but my shed didn't have to explode but for my poorly stored mower gasoline. 

Just my thoughts on this - and this is just my personal perspective, as a result of where I am in my own life 5 years after BD. Note to readers who are not familiar with me.  I am not standing.  I was divorced in 2016.  Once my H pulled the pin in the divorce grenade - I considered our relationship irreparable.

I totally agree with LP on her above statement.
And I think the reason why this statement is important is because I think examining our our dynamics in the marriage will give insight into how to heal from the pain.

We often say that a MLC breakup is different from any other "normal breakup/divorce".
And I agree.  Because for the most part we end up dealing with monsters, or conflict avoiders who refuse to participate meaningfully in the legal and financial aspects of the separation.
In the case of those with minor children - it often involves abandonment of the children as well.

What I see in many (not all) of the LBSers stories is the issue of abandonment.
Our spouses suddenly abandoned us.
And they did it in a cowardly way. 
Usually they sought out other relationships and jumped when they felt they had a safe place to land - the OW/OM.
That is a childish behavior.
This is why you see so many female LBSers say they married a man-child.

One thing my IC brought up to me soon after bomb drop is - my xH was always a man-child - this was nothing sudden.
The fact that I didn't recognize it had nothing to do with the fact that this person had not matured in a normal way.  And this was do to his own FOO issues.

So there was the marshmallow fire.
But my reaction to adapting to his issues created a secondary fire - my own gas in the shed moment.

I was the stronger one in the relationship.
XH was shy, almost fearful of new experiences.
The new friendships we had were all forged by me.
(And xH rejected all of the friends once he left).
Not once in 20 years did he make a new friend on his own.
xH was indecisive, and relied on me to make major decisions.
For more than 1/2 of the relationship I made more money, had more assets.

I think the most telling statement he made when he left was - "OW said she would take care of me."
xH wanted a mommy.  And maybe he got one?  I really don't know.

But none of this relates to me, why I got so devastated, and why it was so hard for me to heal.


LP often says we LBSers are pre-primed for a MLCer.
What she means is often we had our own FOO issues that set us up to select a person with certain character defects.
I had my own FOO issues.
I had been "abandoned" by my Father when he left before I was 2.
I had almost no interaction with him until I was perhaps in high school - and even then it was confined to a couple of short day visits  a year.
My Mother had a bout with alcoholism from the time I was 12 till 18 years old.
During that time I had to live with a grandparent.
In effect I was "abandoned" again by my mother.
My first husband died prematurely when I was in my early 30s. - another "abandonment".
I was an only child.  My father was an only child - so no cousins on that side.
My mother's sister never married or had children - so no cousins there.
My only living relative is a 87 year old aunt. 
I was desperate for a family connection.

I met xH at work, like me he was professionally trained and employed.
He had 2 brothers and a sister. 
His parents were married over 30 years.
They had a huge family.  There were no divorces in the family at all.

I was 10 years older than xH (that should have been a warning sign there).
If I am honest, I was flattered that a good looking younger man was interested in me.
I had everything in place from a material stand point.
I owned 2 homes in the country.  I had an apartment in NYC.
I had some decent savings.
All xH had to do was move in with his clothes.
Because I had more money - if things needed to be replaced - like furniture, or a car, I bought it with my own funds.
After waiting 10 years for xH to plan a vacation, I started to plan and pay for our vacations.
I realized xH was a spend thrift - so I had him pay for the NYC rent, and the car insurances - otherwise he would have squandered his entire paycheck.
So many times I tried to sit xH down so we could plan a budget together.
He always had excuses.

XH had issues with self-confidence.
I started to find ways to require xH to participate decision making.
Often I went along with less than stellar choices simply to give xH a say in things - so he could feel important.
Unknown to me - that backfired - as he felt "pressured" and felt he was handling more than his fair share of the responsibilities. (unfactual - but his post BD opinion).
The more I tried to support him the more I was inadvertently  enabling his weaknesses.
And the more I was pretzling and losing myself in the process.

Here is the proof.
When BD happened - I was suicidal.
I simply didn't/couldn't see a life without this man.
Honestly - that's not healthy.

2 years after BD I was still a wreck.
My entire focus was on the MLC/BD and associated fallout.
I spent day and night on the HS forum.
I talked endlessly about my xH, my marriage, the BD, my pain.

Compare that to where I was two years after my first H's death.
Certainly I missed him - I still do - but I was not completely broken.

That shows me how much I crippled myself in the end stages of the relationship.
I didn't start out like that when xH met me.
I was a strong independent woman.
Yes I had been in grief from my first H's death - but I recovered and was happy as a single woman.
Never once in the time after my first H's death did I contemplate suicide.
But I certainly did after BD - so why the difference?

Because I no longer saw myself as independent.
In pretzeling myself - I had not remained true to my authentic self.
I was overwhelmed with the houses - houses that I owned and managed years before I ever met xH.
Because I had let go of the reigns on the properties - and let xH manage the details.
I was overwhelmed with the finances, because I had been flying without too much accountability since 2 salaries provided lots of wiggle room.

The reality is - none of the things that overwhelmed me were truly overwhelming.
I had in my past managed it all on my own - and I was perfectly capable of managing it again.
But my PERCEPTION of my abilities had changed.

My gas in the shed was brought in drop by drop until it was a full can.
Fear of not having any family.
Having experienced abandonment multiple time before and having my own doubts about my self worth.
Compensating for a man who was an introvert, and childish in his approach to grown up responsibilities because I so desperately wanted to be in the relationship.
THIS is what I brought to the table.

Was it a miserable marriage?
Not at all.  But were there unhealthy dynamics?
Yes there were.

My denial also added gas to the gas can.
I desperately wanted my xH back.
I look back now and realize that too was unhealthy.
If a man suddenly walks out - and never looks back.
If a man cares not one iota about my well being after BD - but instead does passive aggressive things to harm me - why is it healthy to try to cling to that relationship?

I will tell you that my ego was hurt.
I was prideful.
I had a marriage and a life that other people were envious of.
So I had shame when it all came suddenly crashing down.

I was a highly educated professional with lots of talents - but my husband was choosing a high school dropout on welfare.
Somehow I saw that as a reflection on my inadequacies - not his.

I was a smart person - so surely I could figure out a solution.
Surely my xH would come to his senses.
This was the idea that kept my pride going - until as the years passed - I was proved wrong - and it was more shameful.
LP says it all the time - MLC will knock the cr@p out of an over inflated ego.
And I was like an limp balloon at the end.

That denial kept me stuck.  I kept me focusing on things I could not change rather than the things I could.

The gas drops that I brought to the can were many.
It was my job to identify and rectify my own issues.

 



 

[Milly]

Airmid, my H sounds exactly like yours: insecure, shy, friendless, couldn't talk about the family budget, couldn't make decisions.....I was also like you and pretzeled myself into someone I wasn't to please him, or to keep things calm so I wouldn't lose him and our family. And the more I pretzeled myself, the worse he became, and as you say, the more of myself I lost. I didn't know who I was at the end. Still working on that.

But this nobody-me I became in the end was because of my own FOO issues. I don't think a healthy, mature woman would have allowed their H to even begin to mistreat them, that's what I call the avoidant personality, the silent treatment, the lack of discussing problems, the lack of talking about our budget. I think that if I'd been a mature Milly, I would have dumped my H the moment he stopped behaving as a responsible husband.

And yet my H seemed responsible when we first started living together, living within our means, budgeting based on our joint pay cheques, paying everything on time, going on holiday with what was left over. How could I have known that he would slowly stop paying his taxes, start secretly spending his whole pay cheque on himself every month so there was nothing ever left for the family budget? He stopped working full days, stopped paying his car insurance and drove around for 3 years without any, and still to this day I don't know how he managed to spend 90% of his hefty pay cheque every single month behind my back. I don't know what he did with the money. My H's favourite phrase these past 15 years has been: I don't have any money.

Interesting your take on your H's OW being a mommy figure. I had always looked at my H's OW as the dumsel in distress as we're told. But my H's OW has the ego of a bull and is very ambitious. It's possible she told my H a dreamy version of how their lives could be and he saw himself and all his problems now resolved (by OW). That would actually make a lot more sense to me than my H being a knight in shining armor. My H was incapable or fixing, protecting, or anything knightly when with me. And he's still a wimp with his kids: eg. let's the OW sue his D. I think my H found a very sexy mommy in this OW, or a very fluttery fixer, actually a little like I was in the beginning.

Really interesting comparing our marriages under this frame.

[Treasur]

I absolutely recognise the less than feeling.
I didn't have the FOO stuff you describe. I didn't feel the ego thing of competition with ow. I did have the ego thing of shocked disbelief that i no longer mattered at all to my h as I had believed I did. Tbh I still find that a bit shocking lol.

I genuinely enjoyed my m and my h until he blew up. I think some of the adapting round his FOO spots was occasionally a bit tiring, and unwisely inadvertently enabling, but I did not feel lessened by our m or by him.

But I absolutely feel less than I was bc of how many of my life treasures got trashed and mostly bc of how I reacted to the confluence of events and to feeling so helpless and so abandoned by all my lost people. I think i stopped feeling in my bones that I mattered bc I no longer had people to whom I mattered if that makes sense. I understand why it overwhelmed me, know it wasn't healthy as a reaction and feel (currently) less than I was bc of my reaction to it. It has changed me and I don't like some of the changes much. I accept them but I don't like them. I need to figure out still which are temporary and which are permanent.

Finding a way to feel not less than and not permanently partially fragile is my challenge.
In my case, choosing NC and choosing to let my h go was probably the first few drops of new fuel. My truth was that, no matter how much I loved him and no matter what happened to him, I stopped believing that he could ever again be the kind of partner I wanted bc of what he had shown himself capable of doing. I could never have been myself again with him or felt the delight or joy I'd felt before. I am still strangely quite grateful to have experienced that; maybe that is why less than that would not have been enough for me.

So truthfully, most of my struggle in the last couple of years has not been about him at all but about my late-onset broken pieces lol. From a forced empty slate I suppose.

My marriage had much less effect on me than my reaction to how my m ended and feeling so alone.
Ha ha, so accidentally I suppose I'm saying that I do mostly see my m as fallout from his crisis which was probably inevitable for someone with his baggage. I may have been great healthy scaffolding lol...but I am more than that. 

[Velika]

I think one of the important parts of recovery is to feel safe relying on our perceptions.

I think some people on this forum are seeing a definite neurological event that pushes this beyond a question of marriage that won’t be fruitful and in fact could be damaging and traumatic if considered in the wrong stages when the LBS is very vulnerable.

We all know that many MLCers heartlessly pummel their former spouse with all sorts of accusation, gaslighting, and confabulation they often later cannot recall or even agree with. I read a ton of relationship books post bomb drop, which I now find deeply touching and also makes me want to protect that version of myself.

The best thing is to feel safe enough with yourself to trust your memories, your perspective, whatever that may be or if it changes with new information.