[Couragedearheart]

I totally agree with Velika.....you couldn’t make a healthy person have a MLC if you tried.

As for how much of it I will take the blame for.....this one thing....I didn’t fix myself first. That is the only part I can ever own.
H was avoidant, he suppresses  emotions, he was and is a slave to perfectionism, he wouldn’t open up and talk to me.....dear god I tried....I tried for 13 years, I read every marriage book and communication thing I could find.

H wasn’t going to even think about addressing it until he couldn’t suppress his emotions and he was knee deep in crisis.

H isn’t going to heal unless he decides to heal....and not a moment sooner.

Nothing I can do or say will change it.

My reaction at BD was partially glad H was finally fed up with hiding, and being conflict avoidant and ignoring the growing elephant in the room.

H never gave his opinions, would go along with anything and then be resentful later.....I always caught onto it....I would ask him the same question 5 times if he was lying....until he would finally admit what he really thought.

Dear god I tried everything I knew or could read to convince him it was safe enough to live beyond survival mechanisms.

Yet here I am.....just like everyone else.

No marriage didn’t cause it. It was always there....it finally grew big enough nothing I could do could compensate for it.

[Thunder]

Thank you Couragedearheart,

I agree with everything you just said.
No marriage didn’t cause it. It was always there....

It would have happened, no matter who they were married to.

[barbiedoll]

Couragedearheart

Your journey sounds very much like mine. Life with an avoidant person is excruciatingly difficult. I know, I have my own.

[Hmmm]

My therapist told me early on that with his childhood it’s amazing he didn’t break down much sooner. It was my stability and ‘normal ness’ that helped him cope for so many years.

I’m reading Pete Walker’s book on cPTSD and it’s really opening my eyes to the 4Fs of childhood coping mechanisms. He has all four and I would see anger/dissociative episodes/flight into work or sport/fawn into presents and doing things for people. All in retrospect of course.

This was nothing to do with me. I’ve been pretzeling myself for six years to try to keep him in contact with the kids and said everything I can to try to fix this but my emotions actually made him run faster. Now his mother has died and he won’t speak to his father I am very concerned that workaholism is making him physically very ill.

There’s nothing I can do except give my children a fun and loving childhood and try to prevent the cycle repeating xxx

[lawprofessor]

Sometimes I'm just surprised when I re-read a thread and see what people take away from it.

Could anyone show me where it is asserted in the thread that a mlc is caused by the lbs?

Or

That an lbs could make a healthy person or even a sick person have a mlc

Or

That the lbs was responsible for the actions of the MLCer.

I thought we were speaking with a focus on the responses and actions of the lbs, how those things impact the lbs throughout the relationship and can impact avenues of healing, the whys and the choices, the future, NOT focusing on the MLCer and how the lbs might or could impact the MLCer or the course of the crisis and certainly not the ability to create or cause the crisis. I

I must have missed something.  Either that or its impossible to have a discussion that doesn't center around focusing on the MLCer anymore.

Genuinely perplexed,
Lp

[3Boys4Me]

Here is the original question -

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

In discussing if the fractured marriage could be a catalyst for MLC, I don’t see how it’s a stretch for some to interpret this as a question/examination of whether an LBS’s faults in a marriage were a contributing factor, helping to tip a person predisposed to MLC into the crisis. I can understand why some meandered off into this direction on this thread simply based on the original question, I also don’t see how that puts the focus on the MLCer, I interpret these comments as a healthy dose of strength in recognizing that while no marriage is perfect and we all play roles in the demise of a relationship, the LBS did not cause and is not responsible for the MLC or the MLCer and his/her choices. I am a little over 2.5 years and I still appreciate being reminded I didn’t cause this crisis. I took so much on myself in the beginning and my self esteem is still not fully recovered.

[MairJ23]

I am only new here but I feel like this forum invites different perspectives so I would like to give my 2 cents worth.

I myself feel that all though the vast majority of mlc follow the same script that every mlc or mlc’er is different in some way, so I think it is certainly possible that in a marriage/relationship that the lbs may have contributed albeit unknowingly to their spouses mlc.
I personally think I may have contributed to my W mlc in some way, I have my own thoughts that I won’t share here but I think I bare some of the responsibility. But I can’t be held responsible for the choices that my W has made since before and after our separation, I believe  that’s all on her.

That’s just my very unprofessional opinion. I’m not stating fact I’m only going off what I have learned interacting with my WW and reading as much about mlc as I can.

It doesn’t matter to me if anyone agrees or disagrees because I think it’s my right to voice an opinion and everyone else has a right to agree or disagree. I hope no offence is taken by anyone reading.
That’s what I liked about this forum when I first came here and I hope that doesn’t change.

[lawprofessor]

Yes and here is Acorn's clarification response.


"As I have stated in post #1, I agree that MLC is not about the marriage or LBS.  Deep seated issues are of the MLCer alone.  Internal pressure had been building for decades and a trigger, or triggers, would blow the lid off at some point - ‘Hello, MLC, meet H!’  Well, that’s how it was with my H, anyhow.

It is my understanding that triggers (this term is better suited to our discussion than ‘catalyst’?) are the agents that got the MLC ball rolling and have nothing to do with the issues MLCer is carrying deep within."

So she clearly stated the mlc is not a result of the marriage or the lbs.  So why meander down that road?

The way people are addressing the question and focusing on the MLCer:

Take Milly's response.  She is talking about herself, her actions, her words, her behaviors, her responses. How she is focused on growth and healing.  She is the subject.  Her MLCer is not. 

Vs other responses such as

 I refuse to accept the blame for the hell of MLC visited upon me. 

It's dangerous to accept their vision of the world as reality.

I accepted responsibility for her ...

Every response is based on the MLCer, their words, their actions, responding and reacting to them.  Just as is the repeated strong assertions that we didn't cause the crisis.  The focus is on the MLCer.  A dead end since nothing there is within the control of the lbs. 

Yes, it may be reassuring earlier to repeat that mantra. 

But later on it loses its value when one doesn't need that reassurance because it's a given.  When ones focus naturally perhaps shifts to the value in what is within our influence which is ones self.  When one is looking not at the MLCer but squarely at herself and the future with or without standing.  As time goes by not everything in life is framed in relation to the mlc.    Simplistically, at a certain stage old timers usually, often don't build their whole discourse around my MLCer did x so I did y.  Reacting. 

I'm not certain I'm communicating my thoughts clearly though.  But the above combined with knowing where Acorn is at in her process and her detailed other writings as well as her recon tell me she is long past being focused on the actions of the MLCer and more focused on later stage concerns like self growth and healing, like not experiencing this again, like suggesting one does not have to allow mlc to define her life, like one doesn't have to live in pain year in and year out.  That's why she poses some questions that are difficult to answer and seemingly trigger some people.  The questions make one think, and interest even an old timer like me who doesn't maintain a thread or come here daily.  The interest is precisely because she is attempting to discuss more than just mlc, more than simplistic truisms and mantras in my opinion.

Lp

[Songanddance]

Little Wing, I agree with you and what some others are saying about the nature of this thread perhaps being harmful to LBSers.

When people post their personal thoughts, I find it very disturbing that LP takes it upon herself to point out all the things that she sees are "wrong" with that person's point of view because they don't agree with how she sees it.

Do others think it is appropriate for another member to dissect each paragraph of someone else's thoughts and in bold state why they are wrong?

Express how you feel about a topic. We all see things very differently and there really is not a right or wrong response but putting another person's post down in this manner is not right.

It doesn't add value to the discussion, but to me appears to just want to shown some kind of superiority of another's point of view over someone who has a different idea.

Sorry xyzcf. I cannot see anywhere that LP is stating that other people are wrong. It is clear that LP uses bold to show her response and nothing more as she clearly chose to comment (as is her right) on LW's sentences; it is a technique to identify her own thoughts and nothing more.
There is no element of superiority here and she is expressing how she feels about a topic; furthemore LP is adding historical value and information.

I am not quite sure why you think she is making personal attacks because much of her language is in third person and genreralised. 

[Treasur]

I agree, MLC is about the issues within the MLCer......What if fractured marriage was a catalyst that helped launch MLC in some cases?......Might it be a question LBS should ask herself unflinchingly?   That would involve taking off the rose-coloured glasses and lifting the MLC excuse blanket that may be covering up an elephant or two. 

Trust me, it is painful to ask that question.  It made me feel excruciatingly vulnerable..... to look at our marriage in complete honesty and humility, and to see if I was using MLC to justify his emotional divorce from me....that kind of delusional thinking stops you from getting a grip on reality of your marital situation. 

Have you ever asked yourself the question:

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

I thought I'd go back to the post that started the thread, where Acorn wonders if considering the question is a healthy bit of the process of healing for some.

It doesn't perplex me at all that the question raises issues about is it MLC or LBS denial, cause and effect, context, responsibility, doubt, chicken and egg....I also note that Acorn says the question was an excruciating one for her, that it made her feel vulnerable. And that her conclusion....the former not the latter....was useful to her as a kind of check-in question for her own judgment and reality.

Barbie talks about 'hearing through a wound'. I see that in my reactions and in others here. Which is ok and leaves me feeling nothing but compassion for how deep the wounds can be even years later. The need to honour that tbh. And that maybe the wounds and our way of dealing with those wounds is different too.  Perhaps just asking oneself the question is part of healing? Perhaps that is why this is such an energetic thread.

My initial reaction was anger. Just as if someone had said my short skirt was the cause of being raped. Then it was confusion as I tried to apply logic to an illogical experience driven by a person who did not communicate their half. Then doubting my ability to reach a solid conclusion which triggered some residue of being gaslighted by an emotionally unhealthy person who said and did weird things. Which in my case kicked off a last bit of PTSD type feelings for a few days that pointed me towards a bit of work I needed to do still. A deep feeling of WTFness and unsafeness. Which I resented feeling lol.

Most of us were gaslit for a long time, directly or indirectly.
Most of us were blamed for a situation over which, often for a long time, we had very little control.
Most of us lost or fought hard to protect things and people that were of central importance to our previous lives and wellbeing.
Most of us took a level of psychological or emotional damage, again over a period of time, that brought us here and brought us into often intensive therapy sometimes for the first time in our lives.
Most of us felt at times isolated and bewildered by the experience.
Most of us found it almost impossible to reconcile our previous experience of our spouse with our present one.
Most of us worked very hard to find a way to navigate through it to something better regardless.
This is not an insignificant thing.

Making peace with our own life experience is part of acceptance and healing. And that includes sorting our own wheat from the chaff and trying to get to a point when we feel we can trust our own judgment again, whatever that is. Imho there is an inherent tricksy line between focusing on the experience of MLC in our lives vs focusing on the MLC or MLCer. Most of us probably start with the latter and gradually move towards the former as we stumble forward on our own recovery path. And that comes with time and distance too.

The uncomfortable questions can imho be part of righting our own mental ship for some of us, deciding on our own story. Validating people's necessary right to be where they are in their own process, with all the messy bits, is an act of supportive compassion for people who have been gaslit.

It often seems to me that the beginning of the MLC process has more common ground and that the path becomes more individual as it progresses. Perhaps bc the issues that drive it are individual and so how people 'do' their own crisis becomes more individual? And that maybe the same is true for the LBS. That we come here and find common ground, but that how we choose to move forward and what we think helps do that is more and more individual? 

So, I accept that other LBS could understandably criticise my rumination and isolation as unhelpful, that I should GAL and stop thinking about MLC after so many years when my m/h is long gone. Or that others might say that NC is a self-fulfilling prophecy that limits the opportunity to see my xh with compassion or recognise the reality of a person in crisis. With time though, I just think - rightly or wrongly - that it is necessary for each of us to find our own path through and out. That there is no one size fits all for either MLCer or LBS. Perhaps the only extra advantage the older timers have is the ability to look back and see the effects of their own choices or the paths not taken.

I don't need to be right.
I just need to be right enough for me.

The heart of my healing - and I speak only for me - was not about the loss of my m.
It was/is about feeling profoundly unsafe alone in a world that suddenly could hurt me and turn up into down without me being able to do much about it. It left me with a deep wound of 'I can't' and a feeling of helplessness for the first time in my life.
Working out what was and is real and reliably trustworthy in my own judgment is part of my recovery. And what is still a risk or unsafe.
And that process includes evaluating the question mark that was suddenly slammed over 20 years of my own life experience.

And for some, this question and this thread might be a necessary part of their own process.