[JohnnyBravo]

Previous thread: https://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=11938.0

An 11-minute video on emotional detachment that may provide some additional perspective for people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VMDiAMd_bU

[Nas]

Good video, JB. It is very connected to what I've shared on observing your emotions and attachment as an expression of the ego.

[Nas]

Just thought I would share this since it came up on another thread.

https://psychcentral.com/health/ambiguous-grief#looking-ahead

[JohnnyBravo]

I don't want to oversell this guy (same as previous video I linked), but I thought this was an interesting presentation on assessing emotions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSNBgLz3IJA

(The presenter is generally male-oriented, but much of his content is applicable to anyone.) I found this one especially interesting because he used "the guilt of saying no" as an example. The woman I was dating over the summer asked me on a trip. It was kind of interesting but not a way I wanted to spend that amount of time. I felt guilty saying "no," even though I knew there was no reason to feel that way. It was a boundary, not a broken commitment. She later asked if I said "no" because I didn't want to go, or if it was her. I'm sure some of the latter played into it, as I think I felt this question coming, and felt this was moving faster than I was comfortable with. (We had taken overnight trips prior, so the specific venue was relevant.) This wasn't always the case, as I could say no to my wife when we were married, although I didn't often have to, presumably because we knew each other long enough to know what each other would like, or understood the give-and-take of a relationship.

[KayDee]

As we often speak about 'masks' and 'core person' and trauma for both us and the MLC, I found this really instructive.

https://eggshelltherapy.com/a-split-in-our-personality/
Trauma Splitting, Structural Dissociation and The Highly Sensitive Empaths

This is in the context of 'highly sensitive empaths' (HSP in childhood specifically), but it still holds generally. The section on Schemas is also excellent.

[Nas]

Why the New Year Can Trigger Anxiety for Many People
https://www.theswaddle.com/why-the-new-year-can-trigger-anxiety-for-many-people

“A New Year is a reminder that the future is coming and change is imminent.”

I could add a long post here about change and why it’s often great except in certain circumstances and under certain conditions…But I’ll just leave the article. I think it’s interesting and probably relevant for others….

🎶 https://youtu.be/4KeII31qyck

[Nas]

The title is not quite accurate, but interesting read:
https://psyche.co/ideas/trees-dont-rush-to-heal-from-trauma-and-neither-should-we

“To remain alive, some paths have to be closed and new possibilities pursued…”

🎶 https://youtu.be/PDVzELTbHPg?si=Owz19eqzlWenlINJ

[xyzcf]

Some wise words from my yoga teacher as she set an intention at the beginning of class yesterday.

She said that she was telling her therapist that life isn't fair. He suggested that she change her mind to thinking "it is what it is". She responded "so if my house is burning down, I just sit there and think it is what it is". He responded, of course not. You get your family and pets out, find a safe place away from the fire. You have done your best and the rest "is what it is".

Reflecting on this brought me to what I call "acceptance" as I don't particularly like the phrase "it is what it is".....she emphasized..."you have done your best"......letting go of everything else that is out of our control.

Happy New Year all!

[Nas]

I watched the movie  May December on Netflix yesterday. It’s based on the true story of the teacher who “fell in love“ with her seventh grade student and ultimately married him after serving time in jail. I love Todd Haynes and had high hopes. It wasn’t great, but two things about it made it worth watching for me:
 1) Julianne Moore is fabulous at portraying the little subtle tells that identify a true narcissist. She spends most of the movie with a slightly perturbed look on her face. You can tell everything is viewed through a lens of how it makes her feel. Smallish inconveniences become magnified for her and little life disappointments reduce her to tears. The everyday uncontrollable annoyances of life, what most of us would ignore or brush off as an almost imperceptible level of like truly subsecond discomfort, are unacceptable - offensive even - to her.
I can look back and see this in my husband so clearly now but when I was living it, it all just seemed “normal“ - or rather, it went unnoticed, it was just such a part of him and a part of life. It just was. I always think it’s interesting to watch movies like this, especially for LBS who question whether their spouse was always a narcissist. Narcissists don’t arrive wrapped in a red flag. They aren’t flagrantly cruel or openly controlling. In fact, you often believe you are equal partners, or even that you have control, and that you have complete freedom. It’s part of the insidious nature, there are things like the outsized reactions to tiny inconveniences that you accept as part of them, not realizing the layers that behavior contains in terms of control, self-absorption, intolerance, etc, and all along the way, it’s the cumulative nature of little things and a slow, very subtle conditioning, a highly skillful coercive control disguised as “caring” and “connection,” until you find yourself one day years down the road in an abusive dynamic you never saw coming. The analogy of the frog slowly being boiled to death in hot water is totally apt. You. Don’t. See. It. Coming. But the shame and humiliation of realizing that you were so fooled is not a feeling I would wish on anyone. That’s why the discard puts you so off balance.

And 2) the unresolved (and long buried and unrecognized) trauma of the husband, who was 13 when the relationship began, is really  interesting and heartbreaking to watch unfold. I can’t really say much without giving away plot points. But it struck me that as he began to recognize the trauma he had endured, he sought understanding and help from the very person who had caused it, and of course she could not provide him with what he would need to heal. Many LBS can identify with this to some extent, with spouses or FOO or both.

Anyway just thought I would share. I could barely watch TV as a newbie, but as time went on, I sort of found comfort in fictional representations of the dysfunction. It was another level of feeling less alone, in the same way posting here and hearing stories of others is comforting.

Another show that really comforted me once I was out of the super painful part of my LBS journey was a show called The Affair (starring Dominic West and Maura Tierney) which IMO starts out strong and then falters in later seasons, but is a really interesting depiction of a man in midlife crisis.

I definitely found that I saw everything differently after this experience, even in various forms of entertainment.

🎶 https://youtu.be/sBW8Vnp8BzU

[Reinventing]

I agree that it changes watching movies and things in real life. I've watched/heard about at least three instances where the spouse had the OW over to the house, ate at the table with what W so that the W wouldn't suspect an affair since why would someone do that? That was an interesting twist I hadn't seen before. Two of those instances, the spouse had sex with the OW in the marital home, and in one occasion, in the living room while the W was asleep in the bedroom. Unbelievable.

Before I would have thought, well there must be terrible problems at home, how would the W not know, etc etc. All that stuff we used to believe. And all 3 Ws, when they told me this, were blaming themselves--at least at first until they had some time to heal, get on their feet and see things more clearly.