[Snowdrop]

Nicely written, Anjae.

PS I got lost on paragraph 3 , but caught up in the end

[Albatross]

Jung never uses the term Midlife Crisis. It was first used in 1965 by Elliott Jacques. Jung talks about what we know call Midlife Crisis but it is all about the transformation of the self and so on.

Yes, Jung did not make title as MLC per se. But, he use ancient Greek theory Enantiodromia. Using it in psychology.

Literally, "running counter to," referring to the emergence of the unconscious opposite in the course of time."

That happens in MLC, they regress in time inwardly despite they are in middle age.

    This characteristic phenomenon practically always occurs when an extreme, one-sided tendency dominates conscious life; in time an equally powerful counterposition is built up, which first inhibits the conscious performance and subsequently breaks through the conscious control. [Definitions," ibid., par. 709.]

In time... Means unconscious imminently have to be released. Person become unaccountable.

Enantiodromia is typically experienced in conjunction with symptoms associated with acute neurosis, and often foreshadows a rebirth of the personality.

Acute neurosis is even more powerful then severe depression.

    The grand plan on which the unconscious life of the psyche is constructed is so inaccessible to our understanding that we can never know what evil may not be necessary in order to produce good by enantiodromia, and what good may very possibly lead to evil.[The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales," CW 9i, par. 397.]

[Albatross]

In middle life is that, quite often, a chronic enantiodromia takes place.

When that moment comes, the change takes place.  You have disposable libido, available libido, and where does it go?  It goes over there to the twinkle-twinkle side, and Papa begins to see the little girls.  Then everybody asks, “What has happened to Daddy?”  This is the normal phenomenon of the nervous breakdown in late middle age.

… almost everyone faces this kind of crisis.  The problem is, when this enantiodromia comes, are you going to be able to absorb and integrate the other factor, the other side of your personality? 

In any case, it is a fact that consciousness heightened by a necessary one-sidedness gets so far out of touch with the archetypes that a breakdown follows.  Long before the actual catastrophe, the signs of error announce themselves as absence of instinct, nervousness, disorientation, and entanglement in impossible situations and problems.  When the physician comes to investigate, he finds an unconscious which is in complete rebellion against the values of the conscious, and which therefore cannot possibly be assimilated to the conscious, while the reverse, of course, is altogether out of the question.

Dark side - shadow is energy resource, shadow was build up a years as opposite of conscious. If person was one sided and not aware of own shadow and he is literally "good guy" not individual, means do what parents and society wants from him he build up his light side to much. Big light side have big shadow. Imagine it as seesaw, in one moment of time when light side is huge and shadow is also huge, seesaw brake.

[PatienceGalore]

Albatross, that is a lot of good explanations. I need to read over that again.
Anjae, thanks for the vote of confidence.
I'm still reading on the ego part of a person, shadows, etc...funny, but narcissistic tendencies have started to emerge in my H, is that normal, that different parts of the personality which may have been hidden are coming out? Is that still in the Replay stage? I am dealing with a,  wait for it: narcissistic conflict avoider people pleaser (straight from the therapist's mouth!) who blames all his problems and unhappiness on me in out marriage! How on earth do I handle that one???

[Albatross]

Albatross, that is a lot of good explanations. I need to read over that again.
Anjae, thanks for the vote of confidence.
I'm still reading on the ego part of a person, shadows, etc...funny, but narcissistic tendencies have started to emerge in my H, is that normal, that different parts of the personality which may have been hidden are coming out? Is that still in the Replay stage? I am dealing with a,  wait for it: narcissistic conflict avoider people pleaser (straight from the therapist's mouth!) who blames all his problems and unhappiness on me in out marriage! How on earth do I handle that one???

You cant handle anything my friend. He have to do by him self. Also time will do it. You should work on self. That is mantra for LBS's.

[PatienceGalore]

Hi, I am! Doing lots for me, just now that I know what type of personality he is, I will be more mindful of how I speak with him, so as not to antagonise more!

Thanks for the response, albatross....

[FindingJoJo]

To pick from the old thread. Jojo, I don't sound, or am, sugary at all. My husband is the one who thinks I was being such but I was not, I was only trying a new approach (I'm straightforward, blunt even so sugary would never do). I also was not going around things, somewhere in one of my threads I've wrote that talk, but, to him, somehow it sounded different and he was suspicious.

Heck we could blink and they would be suspicious - I think it is the paranoia part of MLC.  Its why they become secretive and distancing.

[Anjae]

Heck we could blink and they would be suspicious - I think it is the paranoia part of MLC.  Its why they become secretive and distancing.

Yep, we could blink and they would be suspicious. Think you're right, it is the paranoia part of MLC. Early on Mr J was not secretive (apart from had start the affair with OW1 behind my back). I knew where he live, he would told where he was going to be (so that I did not come across him and OW1), he told me when he moved to another rented room.

But since summer 2008 the man become the King of secretive. I do know where he lives and what he does and that there is OW2 but not because he has told me. He is being so secretive that he is even given the court a fake address from a county where he does live in. Phew... MLCers... 

Even if I would love to know how does secretive match leading a very public life, appearing in press interviews and so on. Guess he did not thought of it? Maybe he is trying to impress me with his new "famous" life? If the last, he failed. 

[PatienceGalore]

Anjae, how do you stand being treated so appallingly? I admire your strength. I find it hard just knowing H does not know if he loves me enough to come home, what he wants to do, and his total lack of empathy and kindness towards me. how do you do it?

[Anjae]

I don't stand it. I have moved back to our home town over 6 years ago. In all that time I only saw Mr J briefly twice, in social events, the last one May 2008. I have not seen him in many years.

Oh, my dear, he left 7 years ago (minus 13 days), I'm more than used to the fact he has no empathy or kindness towards me. But he had become a vanisher so I don't have to deal with him. It is much easy when they are not around us.

He is just a memory of the past and sometimes I even forget he has existed.