Anybody's WAS in IC?

[meganna]

Karma, yes H has talked with IC about his childhood. In fact, in our 2nd MC session, the C started asking him about his family/childhood and he got very upset. I hadn't known he had lingering issues, and I'm not sure he did either before that day. After that session he decided he needed to work on himself and couldn't work on us. He has continued to go weekly for the past 2 months, but has since also told me he feels we're done.

I can only guess at his issues based on things his sister has told me since the bomb and what I know about his parents. H never told me any of this, so it's speculation. His mom is a nurse, dad is a teacher. Mom worked evenings (3-11), dad worked days, so the kids spent most of their time with their dad. H's dad is a very quiet, emotionally isolated man. SIL told me she felt she was neglected, dad ignored her and she barely had a mom. She said she was never told ILY or I'm proud of you, and when she was upset she would go to her room because she felt she couldn't show emotion in front of anyone, and her mom never came in to comfort her. H and his sister are 7 years apart (H is oldest) so his experience may have been a bit different being an only child for 7 years. H had an uncle who he recently said was "the dad he wished he had" who went MIA about 10 years ago and was apparently diagnosed with Asperger's. I know he was deeply hurt and confused by this.

H's story with why he's not happy with me changes. First it was "we've lost our connection" which is true, with 2 young kids. More recently he told me I rejected him sexually and emotionally and we always had to fight when he wanted to go out of town for a guys weekend. I can see how he felt somewhat rejected sexually, but I would argue that he rejected me emotionally when our first child was born. He actually had panic attacks when I was pregnant and went on medication, which he continues to take to this day. He wasn't very supportive after she was born, she was colicky and I was exhausted and he wasn't much help, so I felt resentment.

I guess what it comes down to for me is I can't see how a rational person could blindside their spouse with all this unhappiness that they kept to themselves until they felt it was too late. And that they wouldn't even TRY to save the M for the sake of their kids. And how timely that these childhood issues surface at the same time....

H has always been selfish to varying degrees, and one theory I have is that he is stuck in childhood. I'm not sure if he felt he had more attention and when his sister was born it took away from him (hence the panic attacks at having a baby come into our home) or if he, like SIL, never got the attention to begin with and felt neglected. Which would explain why feeling neglected by me hurt more so much.

I dunno. More than you wanted to know I'm sure. My entire sitch is in MLC under MLC Purgatory if you're interested.

[dbmod]

I'm no expert on DB in fact right now I wonder if I am doing it right. Yet my interpretation of it says that DB is about making yourself better so you are irresistible to your partner. To show your partner why they found you so great in the first place. Ultimately you have no control over your partner and their struggles. You can only set yourself as a positive aspect of their life through all the positive changes you can make through 180's and GAL. I don't know your sitch very well, but I understand that some WAS use the marriage as an excuse to justify their situation. Remove that excuse by being your best, and he may find himself having to examine the true reasons behind his problems.

Great grasp of the basic idea!

[~ kd ~]

Hey meganna... first I've seen your posts so I'm responding here, but will seek out more info in other topics you may have started.

I understand that many new therapists are "brief" or solution oriented. It is the belief that revealing and understanding the history of the subject(s) as the root cause of the current problem is a long process and (while not irrelevant) does not take care of the more immediate problem in a positive way.

You may have to accept that your H may NEVER make the connection between his past and his behaviour NOW. So what might better help is understanding his current behaviour and look at possible, positive remedies utilizing his current behavioural model to affect positive change.

But, as greenblue90 paraphrased the gist of DB, understand first and foremost that one cannot change someone else. One can only work on oneself. Those positive changes in oneself can be incentive for the spouse questioning the relationship to reconsider "fixing" the relationship (thus fixing themselves first, for the good of the relationship).

Do you need your H to accept he's the "problem?" Or are you just hoping your H will accept why he is who he is? And are you hoping that his understanding of why he is who he is will help enlighten him to wanting to save the M?

It may be very possible, if your H is MLC, that he is rather planning his escape route, and so will simply find some other reason why your M will not work... and in his mind, you are actually to blame for all the M and his' problems...

[meganna]

KD, I do not think H is the problem, I have many things I can improve as well. I just want him to get to a point that he wants to try to save the M, if only for the sake of the kids at first. We were going along just fine (not great, but not fighting, just not as connected to eachother as we could/should be, which was both our faults for not nurturing the R) before the bomb, which was dropped after he was already involved in an EA. Since that day he has become a stranger to me. How could that NOT be MLC? What kind of logically thinking person abandons their home, wife, kids, etc with no plan for what comes next? And he continues to refer to the fact that he's discovering how messed up he is by his parents.

I wish brief therapy was enough, and I did believe that could help us at the beginning of all this, but H is a very selfish person, and with all the new info about his childhood, I am beginning to understand why. If he cannot work through that and learn to put others (the kids, me) above his own selfish desires, I don't see how our M can ever work. It has bothered me for a long time, but I always thought it was just a matter of him maturing more, or me saying the right thing to get him to see how selfish he's being and then he could decide to change it. But now I see it is an ingrained behavior, maybe a defense mechanism, and he cannot just "shut it off." So he needs to revisit his past and heal himself. It is just unfortunate that he couldn't have realized this sooner so it wasn't tied up with R problems.

[Redo]

But now I see it is an ingrained behavior I think thats key. My wife kept telling me that my behavior that i carried from childhood into my adult life was hurting our marriage a lot.

I wanted to change. I understood how i was damaging my relationship. But (1) I could not find the right help within the time wife gave up totally. (2) Everytime i wanted to improve my behavior, i went back to my ingrained behavior as a child using defense mechanisms i used as a child. This again i could not figure out properly because i never got the right help from the right counselor.

1: I would really take time to find the right help. I think that is key.

2: If your husband is trying to change sincerely but seems to be falling back into ingrained patterns, then help him understand that and see if he can respond positively. But yup, your husband cannot use his childhood issues as excuses to get a free ride.

3: Personally this helped me a lot (albeit lil late). I read this book called 'hang on to your NUTS'. This book does touch upon the 'inner child' issues that some guys might have and how to calm that down. See if your husband is willing to give book a shot. It helped me understand what it would have taken to be the protective husband by wife was looking for.