[in it]

It could be...I think she told me once a while ago she loved me..made me want to run like my hair was on fire..

I have had a virtual flood of emotions dealing with this second BD..I get goosebumps again. I feel more alive than I've felt in YEARS.

I have just started to learn how to regulate them. I didn't properly grieve my fathers death 23 years ago because me crying stressed the ex out...so I stopped.

I suppressed so many emotions for so long (except anger)  feeling them was extremely overwhelming. When I grieved the loss this time I had 23 years of bottled up grief inside me.  I did honestly think I was going crazy. And as other losses came along it wasn't easy to not meltdown repeatedly. I mean barely being able to catch my breath crying..the pain has been excruciating.It would snowball as my thoughts raced.

The loss of the relationship with my own children being the worse.

It was pretty scary..but I'm working through it. Working on BALANCE and intensity..

[HopeFaithLove]

I can relate to that init. When ever I was young, I was never allowed to be angry or yell. My brothers could cuss and yell all they wanted but my dad said it was not befitting of a lady to act like that. To this day, I still question my anger and feelings, like I'm wrong for being upset about stuff. Then I repress it until it all spews out in a big fountain and it ain't pretty. I think H would spark me off when I would express my anger about how someone treated me that I felt was wrong and he would say, oh you are over-reacting or you are too sensitive, they didn't mean it that way. Then I never felt like my feelings were validated.

[OffRoad]

I don't need her to validate me. I remember when I was younger I used to think..What's wrong with her..not what's wrong with me.

Then I married someone exactly like her.

BBM: I envy you that. When I was growing up, my mother never validated anything about me and told me I was just "average". Now, I saw other kids and their parents thought they were GREAT. So I imagined that if my mother thought I was only average, I must be pretty lousy if my own mother didn't think I was as awesome as other mothers thought their kids were. (In hindsight, I had noticed these other kids were not nearly as smart, well mannered or even attractive as I was, so that really made me feel like I must be so much worse than they were). Imagine my surprise when years later, I found out I was intelligent, pretty, and other people wanted to be like me (who would want to be like me? Y'know?)

And while I'm still trying to learn, I am lousy at validation myself. Good for you that you were smart enough to know you didn't need her validation.

[OffRoad]

There are 3 videos on Family Tree Counselling Associates webpage entitled The Slaughter Of Trust that talk about a " radar " or "mother nature" way of having you marry the exact person you need to heal childhood injuries . I should know how to add a link , but I do not. It is suggesting that MLC is natures way of knocking down defences in one and this ultimately fotces the other to heal thier own. So we all married  "exactly the right person". Therefore, there are no victims EVER . i  very intrigued by this perspective and the speaker is very convincing . There are many brilliant videos but specifically , I would love to hear opinions on those 3 . I believe he is correct, as unbelievable as it is .

While I believe that we might have married exactly the right person (because we really needed to be dumped on to be a good person? Still not sure about that...) I disagree that there are no victims ever. Whether someone chooses to REMAIN a victim is another story.

That is like saying this guy over there raped you, but you're not a victim. Yes, you are a victim. Period. You are a victim, by definition. But whether you heal or whether you wallow is YOUR choice. It doesn't make you less of a victim, though.

This guy says that love is only nature's way of re-enacting your childhood. Does that mean that after you have re-enacted your childhood, there is no more love? That doesn't even make sense. I think he must have said that wrong.

[MyBrainIsBroken]

When I started counseling three years ago I was asked what I was feeling and I had no idea. The only emotion I was familiar with was anger and I had learned to be afraid of that emotion and rarely expressed it.

There are lots of victims. Many of us were victims when we were children and we developed coping mechanisms to protect ourselves and to help us to survive. In Alanon I've been examining those coping mechanisms and learning to identify and to put behind me any coping mechanisms that are no longer necessary and in fact are probably detrimental. Things like perfectionism, controlling behavior, and passive aggressive behavior. But I don't believe my wife was working out any childhood issues while she was with me. I'm about the exact opposite of her father. I've been told by my therapists that I'm the most empathic and least narcissistic client they've had. I think this guy has it bass-ackwards. It's during the MLC that they leave and re-enact their childhood with someone with characteristics that are similar to the parent they had trouble with,

[in it]

HFL

If someone is dismissive or makes the comment you are to sensitive that is a big red flag to run. If it's how you feel it's as real as it gets.

Someone who downplays or remarks you are overreacting or even says "They were only joking" or "Where's your sense of humor?" is toxic for you.

Disrepecting how you feel is an attempt by them to control you. These kinds of people lack empathy and compassion.

I attended alanon in my 30's it was like a bolt of lightning struck me. These people were all telling the same story.

 I laid down a boundary with my mother and told her I accepted no phone calls after 9 PM at night ( as she saw fit to call me when drunk anytime she liked) She called me back at 8:55 PM the next night drunk and screamed " I don't like ultimatiums" and she and I didn't speak for almost a year.

[LisaLives]

He says there are no victims in relationships--that is important.  He did not dismiss rape victims or other victims of crimes.  But, victim mentality will not get you anywhere.  If your MLC spouse abuses you or steals from you, you are a victim, but if he just leaves for a new life, that does not make you a victim, it makes you A PERSON, the same as you were before. 

I think these pieces are treasures.  He is saying exactly what every LBS needs to hear--even if they find it hard and don't WANT to hear it.  Wanting to die, thinking everything is over is NOT the way to live or stand.  He is coming from the school of hard knocks and telling people that just because you were left does not mean your life is over, unless YOU decide it is. 

And if the pain of abandonment is so profound, he is saying you need to deal with THAT, first thing--because that's not healthy and if you don't fix it, you will leaver yourself vulnerable to that kind of pain again, either by the same partner, or another.  I think his theory fits really well with the irrelationship blog I posted in another thread.  We all married people who were a little bit broken and maybe we were, too.  And this "break" is the opportunity to fix ourselves, even if we can't fix them. 

Thanks so much for these, I love them and they gave me a lot of insight into how to talk to my boys about all of this, too.  There is rich stuff on that site.  Truly, ll

[Peace Joy Love and Time]

I have mixed feelings about this theory of counseling. I understand how it provides people with a sense of control - that they can "own" the decisions they have made that have gotten them to this point. 

One of the things that makes me sad is that this guy (the therapist on the videos) talks about his own MLC (he calls it a "relationship addiction" in other videos as well) and how he wasn't able to come through it soon enough to save his marriage. I want to write to him, myself, and ask about how MLCers get past this addiction...

It is definitely food for thought as LBSers process through the trauma they are going through.  In my own case, I don't know what in my childhood was abandonment - my parents never left, never divorced - perhaps it was when they started leaving me at home on the weekends so they could take my sisters to sports events (track meets, volleyball meets, etc.)?  Interesting how to make sense of this - 

[hopeful2]

Thank you Barbie for posting this topic.It was really interesting.I agree with a lot of it.

I can see how God could be using my H to reenact parts of my childhood.My dad and h are  controlling,passive aggressive ,maladaptive and narcissistic.

A few months go I realize that I still had some issue from my childhood that need to be dealt with .That God was using this crisis and my H to bring them up and out of me.

I do agree that victim mentality is destructive.You can never heal yourself or in your marriage with that mind frame.Even if you are a victim you should never have that mind set.I was a victim of many kinds of abuse But I am not a victim. I don't put a label on myself.When you do that you tend to comfort to that label.

I did find the part about this always being in them interesting .I had that theory too.It a scary thought that this who he truly is.

I can see how I could of over look some things in my H and  marriage and made them a fantasy.Too bad I liked my fantasy a lot more than the nightmare of reality I am now living.

Hopefully we will both get through all this childhood issues and  become the adults we are meant to be.

[in it]

That's how I experienced all of this first BD (5 years ago in 2010)..exow was the betrayal I felt with my father abandoning me for this woman he couldn't seem to keep out of his life. ONLY I relived it watching what my oldest D went through.

 (Honestly? I didn't give a $hit if that's who the ex wanted. I was pretty sure it wouldn't last. I wanted the FAMILY back together.)

For a while I didn't see that. I remember I laid in bed one morning and thought to myself, My father didn't do anything like what he's doing to her..and then I sat up (another AHA moment) and said out loud ..OH YES HE DID!.

Then this 2 BD ( April 2013) it was so clear what the situation was with my mother..like I said she wasn't only showing zero compassion, concern, or empathy for me in the homeless situation I found myself in.(even though she took me in) she had an agenda....
Even after the ex assaulted me ..she enjoyed inflicting as much emotional pain as she possibly could.

I was already down, physically, spiritually, emotionally, and mentally and she enjoyed kicking me. Her punishment for me not having anything to do with her for years. There was a couple of really good reasons for that.

Now that it's somewhat over with come to find out after these last two years of having to deal with her it's jealousy  ..probably more about the fact that I can be happy. I can be even happier than she ever dreamed possible.

 She hates that because she is so miserable. She has said the same exact things to me VERBADUM that the ex has said..but the things he said AFTER I went back to him out of compassion ( Oct 2012). It's the freakiest damn thing really.

When they say misery loves company??..They ain't $hitting you. She hasn't gotten any better as she's gotten older..she's gotten worse.IF POSSIBLE. Trust issues..yeah you might say I've got them. When your own mother treats you like you are nothing you start to wonder about your own self worth. Who do you trust if you can't trust your own mother???

The most mind bending thing I have been told is:

 You cannot take it personally.

There is something wrong with them who would treat people like this.

The best revenge is continue to heal,( grieve ,cry whatever you need to do to work through it) do the things that help you feel better about you, GET SLEEP, don't be so hard on yourself, extend yourself the compassion and empathy, conserve your energy and eject by any means possible the toxic people out of your life who actually enjoy trying to control, manipulate, and hurt you for their own entertainment. Self focus and be happy!

Work on balance...a balance and find peace. Work on finding and keeping that inner peace. Don't let anyone rob you of that. Postive self talk. You are enough!

Let go emotionally, release them lovingly into the universe, give up control, stop trying, drop the rope, not your monkeys not your circus, end their fun and games, stop the drama, go NC, (for those of you who aren't currently reconciling) learn to trust and forgive yourself first, and let God work on them