[superdog]

I came across an article last night about a woman who had been through two divorces and she was talking about her mirror in these men. She interestingly said that in no way were the traits that destroyed these marriages a mirror of herself.

Being someone who thinks A LOT I spend the next few hours of non sleep trying to pin point where my h and I mirrored each other. The nasty traits that have come to the surface in mlc are extreme but in hindsight have always been present in a milder form, masked but not hidden.

I abhor liars and can spot one a mile away, yet I attracted a pathological liar. I say pathological instead of habitual as the former is a symptom of Passive aggressive PD which my h optimises.

I lacked self confidence and self esteem, which I now know he mirrored. But his mask was one of an outgoing self confident man. I clearly thought that I was getting what I wAs missing in myself but that was in fact a fabricated personality.

I was an introverted extrovert, meaning that I was supposed to live my life as outgoing had it not been for my parental input. My h was clearly an extroverted introvert, living very far on his true self. I often used to feel upset that everyone outside of US got mr fun guy and I got sullen non communicative guy.

I have no traits of PA and have always been clear with my thoughts and feelings good and bad, no fears of intimacy etc etc. yet I attracted a PA because it was familiar to my mother.

When doing my own work I have thought many times around this but the article last night made me think how in fact he did mirror in a lot of ways but the traits that seeped out wee always the ones that caused the conflict. Then I had a conflict avoider too, which I am not.

I don't think this woman in the article has been very honest with herself. She attracted them for a reason.

It's a difficult very complex situation I feel I have, we were opposites, yet we mirrored. I have become him and he has revealed himself to be more like I was then. We mirror no more.

I looked up to my h I idolised him I wanted to be just like him, when in fact I was all these things I admired deep inside but actually HE wasn't who he portrayed himself to  be at all. Does that mAke any sense?

My h said to me at the start of all this that his "friend" reminded him of me. I was so offended at the time, but actually he was right only I grew out of that, he was drawn to his mirror from back then. He has often said he is envious of me. The way I felt in the early days when I wanted to be more like him, now the tables have turned. I believe he is envious and that scares him. He doesn't have to try with his friend, she is nothing he wants to be. I am the one he admires in all honesty.

I am glad we no longer mirror it means I have grown, I have matured and I am true to myself.

Have any of you been through this mental checklist of how this fits with you? Have you analysed where this all fits and how this come to be. I am interested in others experience Nd how you have used it to pin point your own areas of personal growth.

Sd
X

[BB64]

Oh yes, Sd!
I have done that work too and came up with the same result as you!
My mlcers alienator ( a male friend) is a nervous wreck, insecure, a druggy (I used to be in my youth but not to his extent), always needs someone to hold his hand etc....just like I was during my depression.
My mlcer once said to me, shortly after bd, that he is not like me. That I have managed to combat depression and agoraphobia with will power
Does that sound 'envious' to you? It does to me!

I think Nc is a great tool for us, as they are not constantly trying to control us anymore, our thoughts become clearer and get great insight into their personalities. Pre and post bd. And our own, too.
Then we can do the maths,

[in it]

At this point in time All I can say is I wanted a PARTNER in life.

 I didn't need someone to feed my ego I was never jealous. Apparently he did and was or is.

My self worth was lacking BIG TIME. And my self esteem was in the toilet.

What's saved me this time around?

Is NC, being employed, and my relationship with God. All things I do for myself.

[artsy2863]

I'm glad someone started this thread, as I have been asking myself and those very few people who know my sitch why I chose my H? You see, the guy I dated before him cheated on me too. Wth is up with that? I am NOT a jealous person, at all. I am super independent and self confident (before BD, not right now). So what is wrong???

Now, I will tell you that NO ONE saw my H as the A$& he has turned into-not a single person. The guy before...really not surprising. But H, everyone admired him.

I also refuse to believe everyone cheats-I wouldn't! So how do I guard against that in the future? How do I trust myself to make a good choice?

[phantomstep]

Yes , I am glad that someone started this thread too. I have been asking myself for the past eight months why I chose my W? What did I see , how were we different and how we compleated each other. I also dated someone before my W and this person also cheated on me. I decided then that i wasn't going to be in a relationship until I met my W three years later. I remeber that what attracted me to her was that she was very different then anyone I met before. Everyone seemed to be the "same" . She surely was different , she stuck up for herself, didn't take $#it from anyone and right or wrong .... well , she was always right.

Of course now looking back at all of it I see that alot of it is narcisism. I haven't really became familiar with that word until all of this happened.
I knew we had alot in common , of course now my W says that she faked it all through out all the years , because I gave her attention and she was afraid that no one else would ever want to love her. She must have really not liked herself all those years.

I always looked up to my W , she seemed strong , knew what she wanted , worked hard on things she put her mind to. But I think now that maybe some of those were masks too . Like she would always say "I dont care what people think of me!!!" , but as soon as someone would say something about her , she would be offended like crazy and badmouthing the person..... surely she cared what people thought ! So she wasn't that strong , she just wanted people to think she was , in reality she was pretty weak...

I don't know if I believe that everyone cheats or not , I have lately found out from some people I recently met , some strange things about people I have known for quite some time.
All I can think to myself is... How can people be so cruel to each other??  Even more cruel to the people that love you the most...

[Albatross]

Of course Superdog, you project own animus in him. I can paste some here about middle age maturing or MLT. Living so long time together spouses become codependent up to some point and both project anima - animus in spouse.

“Once we have perceived the contrasexual element in ourselves and raised it to consciousness, we have ourselves, our emotions, and affects reasonably well in hand.  Above all we have achieved a real independence and with it, to be sure, a certain isolation.  In a sense we are alone, for our ‘inward freedom’ means that a love relations can no longer fetter us; the other sex has lost its magic power over us, for we have come to know its essential traits in the depths of our own psyche.  We shall not easily ‘fall in love’, for we can no longer lose ourselves in someone else, but we shall be capable of a deeper love, a conscious devotion to the other. For our aloneness does not alienate us from the world, but only places us at a proper distance from it.  By anchoring us more firmly in our own nature it even enables us to give ourselves more unreservedly to another human being, because our individuality is no longer endangered.  To be sure, it usually takes half a lifetime to arrive at this stage.  Probably no one can do so without a struggle.  It also takes a full measure of experience, not to mention disappointment.”

- JACOBI

[Albatross]

I find this my post and IMO fits here good:

In every long lasting marriage is completely normal for life partners to be codependent. After so many years of love, happiness, sorrow, bad, good and everything what two people can go trough people become codependent in healthy way. After all those memories. If You for example my age 50 years and first 10 we don't even remember well only in some fragments last 40 years and 10 was teenager years which is memorable but normally we don't see self in that because we was kids, not develop as we are now in both ways physically and psychologically. What then left as US single ONE ? Only those college years before marriage, in that time we also been in quest to searching not self but life time spouse. So, we know self as one in totally fog long, long time a go... In marriage we both lost self in collective self as couple and as family all of that is perfectly normal.

When BD, LBS lost self ! Because we was all the time identified with us as couple and us as family... So, we have to discover again self... But we know self but missing huge part in it. And that is the reason why is detaching so hard. In other words we wanna part of self which gone and we feel empty. Means our MLCer push us in self rediscover... They also lost self in collective self and they unfortunately don't anymore see self in collective self.

And now You have in my case, strict example 26/30 years. So, it is obvious and normal that LBS after BD is in total mess.

Some LBS never rediscover self, some does. Some MLCers never rediscover self, some does. For successful possible reconnecting both parties should finish own journey. Means LBS own MLT and MLCer own crisis. Even after that no guarantee for reconciliation. Why ? Because we both left tunnel as different persons then been in marriage and also different then met in the first time....

Point of standing is rediscovering self having own life and wait for spouse until we wanna so.

Generally woman are more codependent in marriage then man for that exists obvious reasons.

Here in this post I am talking about normal healthy codependency not maladaptive one.

[superdog]

Thanks Albatross.

So just to get my head round this one I am writing this out loud. If we have identified all these things in our spouses and see where we fitted into to that dynamic and also the source of that dynamic then we have consciously brought out animus to the surface?

once brought to the surfAce we can then reintegrate this part of ourselves and either embrace or deny it?

The character traits I identified in my spouse that most attracted me (albeit that they were a mask of his) were in actual fact the ones I needed to bring out in myself as I matured, which I did. That's very interesting.

What's more interesting is that my h accused me of having stolen his life. I actually did didn't I. Lol I stole all the good bits he had invented for himself, but weren't real. But they were real for me just buried deep inside. Wow actually that's bordering on the creepy. Hee hee.

I do know also that all of the horrible traits my h has in PA absolutely brought out the worst in me and still do. But for different reasons. I took the stonewalling and the sarcastic put downs personally and would also take his blame shifts to be actually my fault on some level. That was self esteem issues for sure.

The stronger I got and the more esteem I got and the less needy I became, my h did not like it at all. It all figures so perfectly. He could not longer carry out his PA defences on me and watched me grow into something he wanted to be for real and not the mask he could no longer keep up. His mirror reflected back how weak HE was and how little he himself had grown. In short I make him look bad !!!

I guess then that perhaps my strength is where his anima lies? My ability to connect with others on an emotional level, my empathy. I am purely guessing as one never knows.

If I am reading correctly into your posts then it would appear that my own MLT is complete and I need to get on now with life as this stage being who I am mean to be. That good cos I like her very much.

Everything my h does annoys me, I no longer respect or look up to him, he has nothing I want. That figures too if I am no longer projecting anything on to him. His PA makes me want to throw a chAir at him. But the main thing is that I know it's him bling PA and take none of it on board as my fault. That is progress like no other for me.

Okay I am a believer that this happened to me for a reason. I needed clearly to stand back and understand all of this. The cloud of in love with my h stunted my own growth, having out of the way ( well emotionally anyway) has been necessary for ME.

If I am here now, then this started for me personally when I was 36 when I started changing. I can see that now. I wasn't done when bd hit 2.5 years later. I am 43 now and I have been pretty much at peace with myself for the last 12 months. So all in all I would say my own MLT has lasted 6 years. For the record the first few years my h was not someone I like very much. But that's another story.

Sd
X

[in it]

For me? Things became a lot clearer after attending an alonon meeting in my 30's. I realized then there's nothing wrong with me. Slightly codependent by then.

I made a boundary with my mother I said I would no longer accept phone calls after 9 PM at night. She would call me up drunk anytime she wanted and blubber about her life.

She called me up drunk at 8:55 the next night spewed she didn't like "ultimatums" hung up and didn't talk to me for at least a year after.

Most peaceful year I ever had.

Unfortunately I married him during that time. Then my father died and my first child was born.

I've been wildly codependent on everyone since then..but not anymore to an unhealthy extent. Especially when it comes to self worth.

[leftylulu]

Albatross,

This is exactly where I'm at, "In a sense we are alone, for our "inward freedom" means that a love relations can no longer fetter us: the other sex has lost it's magic power over us, for we have come to know its essential traits in the depths of our own psyche, We shall not easily 'fall in love', for we can no longer lose ourselves in someone else, but we shall be capable of a deeper love, a conscious devotion to the other. For our aloneness does not alienate us from the world, but only places us at a proper distance from it."

This explains a lot to me. I thought I was overly detached. I no longer seem to depend on others for making me feel a certain way. I'm not sure how to explain it.

I was telling my mom the other day that nobody can make me feel a certain way, only I can do that. I've chosen to just be happy. I've also learned that I can create my own experiences so I've chosen to either have positive experiences or learning experiences, never bad experiences.

I connect differently to people now. A deeper level. I'm not sure it's because I live with an open heart, or that I'm not afraid to be vulnerable. It really helps people to open up.

SD,

I threw my mask(s) away but I still wear many hats. I'm no longer afraid of who I am. I'm no longer afraid of people not liking me because I know not everyone will like me. There's people I know I don't or will not like but it doesn't mean anything more than we are just at different spots in our lives.

I've learned to live my own truths. I seem to be pretty honest with myself. I seem to check my own motives before I make any decisions, big or little. It seems to help me live a more authentic life.

I've also learned people travel their own paths in search of their own inner peace. If I can be of service by simply sharing my story, flaws, warts, and all maybe it will help others accept themselves for who they are.

I live a very simple life, not many frills, but I also have the most amazing life.

Take care,
Lulu